


Infiltration

by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Heist, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9369254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster
Summary: As the team waits for Sendak's memories to be processed,  Hunk finds that one of their crystals is breaking down, and now is the best time to find a replacement.  Unfortunately, the only place to get one is inside a Galra storage facility. Which means they have to break in.Part 2 of Heading to War.  Written for the Voltron Season 2 Countdown





	

**Author's Note:**

> Confused? Click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Heading_To_War/works/9350345) to read the first part of the series by Mumblefox.

“Is this thing useful for anything else?” Lance asked, turning the long, blue crystal over in his hands.  “I mean, aside from its original use.  Which it isn’t so useful for anymore.”

Brows up, Hunk stepped into the Black Lion after him, his helmet balanced on his hip.  Ahead of them both, the interface flickered as Shiro settled into the chair.  “Well, for a few things.  We could probably break it apart and use it in smaller devices.  It’d be hard, though, with that nasty crack.  It wouldn’t last nearly as long as it’d need to, for one.  And for another, there’s a pretty good chance of malfunction.  Have you heard the banging during the night cycle, recently?”

Lance considered, then shook his head.  “Nah. Pidge let me borrow her headphones for sleeping.  She made it so they’d play the alarm, but otherwise I don’t hear much of anything.”

“I have,” Shiro offered, though he didn’t look back.  His fingers pressed against the display, inputting coordinates as the jaw closed back up behind them.  

Hunk paused, waiting to see if Shiro was going to elaborate.  He didn’t, which wasn’t much of a surprise.  He’d been… quiet, since the Galra crystal had infected the castle.  It would worry Hunk, except they’d all been a little shaken.  After all, Hunk had his own nightmares about being in zero gravity alone, helpless to move as the castle malfunctioned and shut off around him.

Finally, he nodded.  “Yeah, it’s from this little guy.  It’s for the engines, and mostly helps with keeping everything steady.  Kind of like a radiator and coolant system.  When it starts to go, the castle has to keep up with it using its life support systems, so it gets strained.”

“And makes a bunch of noise?  Well, at least there’s no being surprised by it.”  Lance tossed the crystal between his hands, making it flash in the reflected light.  Under them, there was the faint hum of the Black Lion taking off, but inside they could barely feel the movement.  Good old inertia dampeners, keeping them from being pancakes every time they left orbit.  “But, if it’s not reliable, it’s not useful to anyone, right?”

Lips curled up, Hunk leaned against the wall.  “You can keep it.”

“Yes!”  Lance held it over his eyes and looked around.  He was probably enjoying the warped and blue-toned look of the cockpit through the crystal, but Hunk enjoyed the way it magnified them from this side, making Lance look like he had two huge, entirely blue eyes.  “I spy, with my little eye-”

Shiro sighed.  “Please don’t.”

Pouting, Lance leaned against the back of his chair.  “Hey, c’mon, we have an hour to fill.  You want me to sit here in silence that whole time?”

There was a pause, like Shiro was seriously considering it, and Lance’s bottom lip stuck out harder.  “Not I Spy.  There’s only so many things in here.”

“I’m with Shiro,” Hunk offered.  “We could play cards.”

Lance groaned.  “No way.  You’ll win.  You count, you cheater.”

“We don’t have to play Blackjack.”

“Poker’s no fun either.  You know all the probabilities.”

Hunk just shrugged and grinned, because he did.  It wasn’t like it was hard to keep track of fractions of 52, after all.

Finally turning and looking at them, Shiro pulled off his helmet.  “Or we could go over the game plan.”

“What’s there to go over again?” Lance returned.  “We did this all morning.  We patch Hunk into the systems, we use your hand to get in, we get the crystals, we leave.  Like cool spies.”

Shiro’s brow rose, this time in amusement.  “Really?”

“Yes, we really are,” Lance shot back, purposefully misunderstanding.  “Are you sure your cool factor is up for the challenge?”

“Probably not,” Shiro replied, tone flat.  “But I suppose that’s what a team is for.”

Lance shifted his elbow over, so it was resting on Shiro’s shoulder instead of his chair.  “Don’t worry, I’ve got enough cool for both of us.”

Expression schooled into blankness, Shiro tilted his head.  “I meant Hunk, actually.”

Hunk snorted.  “Right.  Sure.”

“Actually,” Lance replied, picking up on the thread instantly.  “You do have that suave hacker mastermind thing going for this mission.  That is pretty cool.”

Rolling his eyes, Hunk shook his head.  “No one wants to be Q.  They all want to be James Bond.”

“Speak for yourself!”

As they continued to bicker, Shiro watched them, but didn’t seem to really be paying attention.  Then something seemed to shutter in his gaze, and he went back to working on the Black Lion’s readouts.

Hm.  At some point, they really did need to talk to Shiro about whatever had happened to him last week.  He’d never said.

Well, Hunk wasn’t the guy to do that, probably.  He’d talk to Lance about it later, and see what he thought.

For now, they had a mission.

***

The facility was on a moon.  The enormous planet below was all swirling gas and rings of ice, but it had several moons that threatened to rival Earth’s size.  Just barely big enough to support a breathable atmosphere, though Hunk felt much more comfortable with his helmet on.

Landing without detection wasn’t much of a problem, even without the Green Lion’s stealth capabilities.  The facility didn’t have much in the way of long distance surveillance.  The Galra didn’t seem to care much about what was inside, including the crystals. And why should they?  These particular synthetic crystals were deeply outdated.  Honestly, they probably kept control over them out of habit rather than need - Hunk deeply doubted that the average transport ship had need for more than one of the smallest kinds, and even then only every few years.

Then again, maybe the reason they kept it was because they knew the Castle of Lions ran on them.  Zarkon had been angling to get his hands on the lions for the past ten thousand years, after all.  It’d be a pretty big problem for him to get it, then find out he couldn’t use it anymore because no one used those materials anymore.

All it took was landing on the other side of the moon, using the shadow of it to cover their approach, and just the teensiest bit of manual jamming.  Not enough to be noticeable, not really, but enough to keep from pinging their radars for the couple of minutes it took to find a landing spot in the craggy rocks for the Black Lion and get out so her shields activated.  Once that was up, most minor forms of detecting wouldn’t do much.  Which was good, because otherwise the Galaxy Garrison would have found the Blue Lion ages ago, and where would they all be then?

Following an old, unused-looking path, the three of them half-climbed their way to the facility, only to find something in their way.

At first, Hunk’s hand snapped to his bayard, automatically on the defensive of the huge, hulking beast in front of them.  It looked like an elk or a horse, with huge, amber colored antlers rising over their head, and what looked like fur growing around the base of their neck.  Hunk’s original thought was that he was wrong, and that the Galra had one of their monsters stationed here for some terrible reason.

But then he realized the creature was talking to itself, in a way that didn’t seem like any monster Hunk had heard.

Wait, no, they were talking to what Hunk had thought was an extension of the deer, but was actually a different alien.

“After all that work and effort, and now we’re stuck-no!  Did anyone think about this?  How-no are we supposed to do-no this?”  They clopped their hoof against the rocky terrain, managing to give one of the stones enough of a sulky kick that it skittered down the path.  They continued to mutter darkly, turning in place from what looked like sheer frustration.

The fluff on the antlers seemed to move, and Hunk realized it was actually another, separate creature.  With glacial slowness, they reached down and tapped the deer’s head.  Then, inch by inch, the paw moved to point in the direction of Hunk, Lance and Shiro.  “Voltron.”

Oh boy.

Turning around, the deer’s stubby tail gave a lash.  “Voltron-no?  You mean- oh.  Oh!”  Head tossing, the deer started to barrel toward them.

Shiro’s arm activated in an instant, and he stepped in front of Lance and Hunk as his whole body coiled in preparation to pounce.  Hefting up his own gun, Hunk planted his feet, and saw Lance do the same out of the corner of his eye.  This deer was big, easily topping eight feet even without the horns, but they wouldn’t manage to get close before they’d go down.

Eyes wide in alarm, the not-deer clattered to a stop.  “What?  Hey!  I thought you-no guys were supposed to be helpful-no.”

The sloth’s expression crumpled, as if in slow-mo, and they let out a sigh that was nearly annoyed.  “Scared.”

“Scared-no of what-no?”   The deer snorted, just like an Earthen horse.  But then they frowned.  “Oh.  Us.”

Lance eyed them both, a frown cutting across his face.  But he slowly lowered his weapon, if only by a couple of inches.  “Who are you?  How do you know about Voltron?”  He asked.

The deer huffed.  “I’m Dreyak, and my partner is Haikon.  We were told-no about it. That the symbol-no was Voltron-no.  That you would help-no.”

Huh.

Well, it was nice to be singled out for a nice reason, at least.

“Help with what?”  Shiro asked, straightening up.  He hadn’t stepped back, still half in front of them, and he didn’t look particularly inclined to change that.

“We were told our artifact-no was here-no.  We need to go inside to retrieve-no it, but we cannot-no.  I’m too big, and my companion… well…”  The deer’s head drooped, and they stared at them with big, brown eyes.  “But if we leave-no without it, our people will die-no.”

Hunk swallowed hard, feeling pinned by the gaze.  But it didn’t feel manipulative, in the slimy way Rolo and Nyma had.  Just scared.  Young.  He had the feeling this alien was barely more than their age, in terms of species maturity.

Glancing over, Shiro raised his brow in silent question.  It only took Hunk a moment to realize Shiro wanted to know his impressions.  Hunk shrugged, then inclined his head.  Probably okay.

Shiro nodded, then focused on them again.  “We’re about to enter the facility as well.  But first, can you tell us more?  What does it look like?  How heavy is it?  What does it do?”

Dreyak brightened, picking up their head so fast that Hunk was suddenly, warily aware of how big and dangerous looking those antlers were.  “Our thanks-no!  It’s not too big.  The size of your heads, maybe?  I’ve never seen it.  I do not-no think it should be too heavy-no.  And if it works the way it’s supposed to, it’ll help-no our people survive-no.  Times have gotten hard.”  Considering them for a moment, the deer glanced up at the sloth companion, who was watching them with a clear, steady gaze.  “Talking will be easier if you flag-no your words.”

Flag… oh!  “That’s what the ‘no’ is for?” Hunk asked, eyes brightening.  “Your friend doesn’t hear fast, do they?”

“No, none of the Asperion do.  We Ka’alia try to help-no how we can.”  The Ka’alia gave a little toss of their head, almost like the impression of a shrug.  “But it’ll help-no, so I will not have to repeat anything.”

Lance stepped forward, his side nearly pressed against Shiro’s.  “Well, if we can help, um, no, then we should.”  He glanced over at Shiro, eyes bright and chest puffed out.  Clearly, he liked that Voltron was known for being able to help those in need.

And yeah, Hunk did too.  It was nice.

“Do you know where-no the artifact-no is?” Shiro asked, nodding back to Lance with a hint of a smile.

Dreyak paused, thinking.  After a second of silence, Haikon took a deep breath.  “44.”

“Section 44?  That’s close-no to ours,” Hunk replied.  “And I wouldn’t mind having some company-no.”

Shiro nodded, shoulders squared.  “We’ll do our best.  You two wait here, and we’ll get set up.”

***

With Hunk’s schematics of the facility, it was easy to find the best place to settle in.  They stationed right outside the security room, and within minutes, Hunk was able to patch right in.  The poor camera system wasn’t prepared for someone like him.  Most of the cameras were on the inside or on the doors, so where they were was pretty secluded, unless one of the sentries decided to take a detour.

With the helmets on, they could continue to communicate without any problems, and the whole thing did feel a lot like being in a spy movie.  Except in those, Hunk wouldn’t be limited to the frustratingly tiny screens that his suit projected.

Ah, well.  Hopefully he wouldn’t have to deal with it for long.

“You find the spot?” He asked, beginning to record a few seconds of footage for each of the cameras.  It wouldn’t pass scrutiny, since anything that was supposed to be passing through wouldn’t show, but at least the others wouldn’t be showing up in all their Technicolor glory.

Lance hummed.  “I think so.”  On screen, he stared up toward the roof of the building, hands on his hips.  “Even with the jet packs, this is gunna be a climb.”

Pausing, Shiro turned to look at him.  “It shouldn’t take long.  I’ll go up first, and if you need a hand I’ll be there.”  He patted Lance on the shoulder, then took a few steps back.  With a running start, he activated his pack, using it to give his jump a little more air.  On the poor quality of the security cameras, it was a little jerky to watch, but Hunk could see Shiro plant his foot against the exposed piping running down the wall, then use that to push off again, grabbing onto the sill of the second story window.  Swinging himself up in one fluid motion, Shiro pushed off with another burst from the jet pack.  It was enough that he could hold onto the edge of the roof, and pull himself over. He sat on the edge, hands folded sedately in his lap.

The whole thing took barely over two seconds.

Hunk wasn’t sure why he bothered to be surprised by Shiro’s odd proficiencies anymore, but he hadn’t expected parkour.

“Did you catch that?” Shiro asked, just the hint of a tease to his tone, but even on camera Hunk could see his smirk.

Groaning, Lance nodded.  “Yeah, totally.  I’ve got this.  Anything you can do, I can do better, all that.”  Stepping back, Lance took a deep breath and bounced on his heels.  Then he darted forward.

Jumping with the pack, Lance managed to hit his foot on the same place Shiro had, and he twisted to grab onto the sill, if with slightly less grace.  He kicked his feet, scrambling against the wall to pull himself up.  Once he had his feet under him and he was standing, he whooped and pumped a fist.  “Yeah!”

“Told you it wasn’t a problem,” Shiro said warmly.  “Want a hand for the last bit?”

Lance straightened, shoulders back and expression bland, but then he let out the air in a huff.  “It’d probably be faster.”  Reaching up, he grabbed Shiro’s offered hand, and together they pulled him up the rest of the way.  “Where do we need to be, Hunk?”

“Uh…”  Hunk winced.  “There’s not really a good view from here, sorry.  There should be a vent somewhere there and if you hop in you should be pretty close.”  He tried to pull up the blueprints to get a better reference, but he groaned at the tiny size of it.  

For a moment, there was quiet, and then the comms screeched. Hunk jumped and nearly tore off his helmet, but after a moment he realized it was shearing metal.  Shiro must have been opening the vents for them.  “We’re in,” Lance announced cheerfully.  “Left or right, and how far?”

“Left for, like, fifteen feet.  Then there’ll be a cover you can get in through.  Remember not to let anything drop.  Even a screw is enough to set off the pressure sensitive floors.”

A minute later, Hunk’s screen showed a pair of blue boots slowly entering from the top of frame.  Lance hung down, and when he spotted the camera, he gave it a grin and a wave.  Hunk returned it before he remembered how useless that was.  “Hey, buddy.  Got your good side.”

“Which one?” Lance replied, but his grin widened.  

Despite the joking, Hunk held his breath, waiting for the sound of the alarms.  But his patch job had been good and there was no commotion from the monitoring station, so he relaxed.  “Okay, 44 is gunna be to your right.  See those lines of cabinet things in the middle?  That’s what you want.”

Lance nodded.  “Where’s ours?”

“The crystals are in 57.  They’re along the wall.”  Which was going to be much harder to deal with than the center ones.  Those they could practically drop right onto, but there was a large, empty space between the vent access and the safe they wanted.

Considering, Lance glanced up.  “I’m gunna get down so you can see.”  With that, he swung from his hold like he was on the monkey bars, then let go.  It was only a few feet, but Hunk’s breath still caught nervously as Lance’s feet angled toward the safes.

He landed easily, though, then turned to watch Shiro hang as well.  “What do you think?”

“You get started on the artifact for our friends,” Shiro replied, gaze considering.  Now that they were inside and closer to the camera, Hunk could see the bright look in his eyes.

Shiro was having fun with this.

Nodding, Lance glanced over the edge of his perch, checking the number.  It must have not been the right one, because he huffed, then carefully stepped over to the cabinet next to it.  Once he found the correct storage, he shifted his bayard and leaned over the edge, pressing the muzzle to the lock.  “Hey, Hunk, is sound a problem?”

“Doesn’t look like it.  All the sentries are out of auditory range.”

“Cool.”  

Lance fired.  

As much as Hunk would have preferred their low profile to really be the perfect crime, they weren’t going to have time to manually pick those locks, and Pidge’s program only worked for electronic blocks.  Still, he winced when he saw the charred, ugly remains when Lance pulled back.

Ah, well.  It wasn’t anything that could be tied back to them, which was as good as they were going to get.

While Lance riffled through, looking for anything that had matched the Ka’alia’s description,  Shiro started to move.  Swinging forward, he reached out and snagged another pipe, then another, passing from one to the other like a kid on monkey bars.  The metal screeched and creaked from the treatment, but seemed to hold fine.  Once on the other side, he openly grinned.  “Obstacle course for training soon, I’m thinking.”

“Ugh, really?  C’mon, can we not talk about training during an actual mission.”  Lance picked his head up enough to stick out his tongue at Shiro, then sat up.  In his hands was a round, not quite perfectly spherical object, near covered in strange looking symbols.  “This has to be it.”

Shiro glanced over and nodded.  “Good job,” he called, and Lance beamed back.  Leaning over, Shiro pressed a finger to the lock, and lit his hand.  It sizzled and gave, and Shiro yanked the drawer open.  “Hunk, do they need to be any particular size and color?”

“Well, blue is the one we want, but…” He trailed off, eyes widening.  “Are there a lot?”

Rather than reply, Shiro pulled out a handful of crystals, all colored in glassy pastels.

Hunk’s mouth went just a bit dry.  “How many can you carry and still get out?”

Considering, Shiro tilted his head.  “As many as I can hold in one arm.  A little over half a dozen, I think.  Preferences?”

“Blue ones first, and then greens.  A white or two would be good.  Don’t worry about reds, they don’t do us much good.”

Digging through, Shiro pulled out Hunk’s suggestions, then carefully arranged them against his side, holding them in place with his metal arm.  Using his foot, he kicked the drawer back in place.  “Alright, I’m going to head to you, Lance, and then we’ll work on getting out with these.  I think you’ll need a hand with that one, right?”

Lance considered, tossing the artifact lightly in his hands.  “I could handle it, but, hey, teamwork.  I’m about teamwork.”

Shooting him a smile, Shiro backed up as far as he could, one foot planted on the wall, and then used that to push himself off when he jumped.  He reached the first pipe.

Which apparently didn’t like being abused a second time, because it snapped at a nearby joint.

Since Shiro had been holding on with his metal hand, he was able to keep his grip and stay up.  But the sudden jolt loosened his hold on the crystals, and a couple slipped free.  Shiro curled in on himself, trying to catch them, and managed to hold onto one with his legs, but the other fell, achingly slow, and clattered on the floor.

Hunk’s screens flashed bright red as the alarm sounded.  “Oh, no.”

“Damn,” Shiro groaned.  He dropped to the floor and snagged up the crystal.  “How long do we-”  The door opened, and two sentries burst in.  “Never mind.  Lance, we need long range.  Throw me the artifact.”

Nodding, Lance passed the artifact to Shiro like a basketball, who caught it smoothly with one arm.  Then Lance drew his bayard, switched it to weapon mode, and fired on both before they could make it out.  “Is that alarm going to be a problem?”

Hunk groaned.  “Maybe?  I don’t know.  One second.  Head left down the hallway, I need to make sure we’re not getting company.”  First, he went ahead and took down the feeds he’d been patching in to the monitors.  Then he turned off his projected screens and activated his own bayard.  Holding it in his hand, Hunk stepped into the camera view by the closest door, then walked past and pressed against the wall.

A few moments later, the door opened, and the sentry from the monitoring station stepped out, weapon up and ready.  But they were facing out, thinking Hunk had continued walking, and so they were utterly unprepared for Hunk to heft up his weapon and swing it like a battering ram.  The sentry hit the door frame and jolted, then collapsed down.

That taken care of, Hunk vaulted over the broken robot and picked up one of it’s broken arms to activate the console again.  Within moments, the flashing red alarm stopped, but instead there was the symbol for an incoming message.

Ah, jeez.

Tapping on it, Hunk swallowed hard.  “Hello?”

“Distress signal received,” reported the gravely voice on the other side.  “What is your situation?”

Hunk glanced around, frantically searching for something to trigger a plausible lie.  “It was, uh-” his eyes fell on his bayard.  “A weapon’s malfunction.  Sorry.  But we’re fine now.  Everything’s fine.  Thanks for asking.  Uh, how are you?”

Oh god.  Shut up, mouth, shut up!

Over the comms, Lance let out an awed breath.  “Dude.”

“Who are you?  What’s your designation?” The voice snapped.

Hunk looked around again.  “It’s uh- shoot.”  He cancelled the call.  “Okay, guys, we need to run.  Then he glanced at the camera feeds and winced.  “And, uh, incoming.”

“We’re on our way. How man-” Shiro groaned as three more sentries turned down the hallway toward them.  “That many.”

Lance fired down the hallway, and got a glancing hit off of one, but the extra energy bounced off the wall wildly.  “Okay, that’s not good.”

Ducking his head, Shiro glanced back at him.  “Cover me if you need to.”  And then he darted forward, running along the left side of the wall, then dodging right before any of them could get any decent aim.  With the artifact still in his arms, Shiro’s main weapon was off limits, but instead he slid in like a baseball player going for home plate.  He kicked out the legs of one sentry, then spun on his heel hard enough to kick the other in the stomach.  And it wasn’t the enhanced strength of the Galra arm, but it was enough to send the sentry toppling into the one Lance had first hit.

Hunk was so absorbed watching that screen that he didn’t notice movement on the other screen.  Instead, he heard the sound of metal feet just in time, and Hunk yelped and ducked right as a bolt shot out one of the monitors.

“Hunk?” Lance called.  “You okay?”

Gripping his bayard again, Hunk pressed his back to the desk.  “Give me a second and yes.”  He checked his own screen for a second, wincing as he felt his cover shudder from another hit.  “Uh, next left and you’ll be where I am, and we can get out.”

“Rodger that,” Shiro replied.  

With that taken care of, Hunk timed out the shots from the sentries, waiting until they’d both just fired, and then popped back open and unleashed his own blast.

When Shiro and Lance jogged in, Lance now clutching the artifact to his chest, there were only scattered parts of the sentries left. “All clear?”

Hunk nodded.  “I think that was all of them, yeah.  Until any friends arrive.”

“We’ll let someone else be the welcoming party, I think,” Shiro replied.  “Let’s go return this to Dreyak and Haikon, and then get out.”

Starting for the door at a jog, Hunk eyed Lance blandly.  “Was the mission as fun as you thought it’d be?”

Lance snorted.  “Yeah, dude, you kidding me?  You got to be Han Solo, don’t complain.  Besides, the plan always goes wrong.  And we made off with the loot.  That’s how the story always goes.  Back me up here, Shiro.  It was cool to be all James Bond, right?”

For a moment, Shiro eyed him back, one brow up.  Then the corner of his mouth raised.  “Shirogane.  Takashi Shirogane.”  He used his metal hand to make the shape of a gun.  “Blam!”

“That’s what you said a laser sounds like, not a gun,” Hunk objected.  

Lance nodded sagely as he headed down the rocky path waiting for the Ka’alia and Asperion.  “Totally disqualified, dude.  We’re disappointed in you.”

…Yeah, okay.  Maybe it had been a little fun.  Still, Hunk was going to be much happier when they were back to the castle.

But first, they were going to have to hand over the artifact to the pair as quickly as possible.

Well.  The quickly part might be a problem, considering the only one with hands was the painfully slow-moving sloth.  

Ah, man.

***

Coran beamed over the new collection of crystals, running his fingers down them.  “Oh, look how pristine they are!  Lovely.  These are perfect.”

“Well done,” Allura replied, watching Coran’s enthusiasm with open affection.  “This will do us a lot of good for a long time.”

Blushing under the praise, Hunk smiled.  “I’m just glad we won’t be stressing about it later.”

“It was no problem,” Shiro agreed, tone mild.  Hunk made a mental note to remember Shiro’s tendency for understatement extended to ‘stuff went wrong but we handled it’.

Lance leaned against a console, grinning and waggling his brows.  “And if you ever need someone to do super cool spy work in the future, we’ve got you covered.”

“Did Pidge finish while we were gone?” Shiro asked, ignoring Lance’s attempts to playfully nudge his arm.  Some of the easy amusement he’d gained on their adventure had drained out of him, now that they were back in the castle.

Allura shook her head.  “No, she hasn’t sent word.  If you want to check in on her, she’s at her workstation.”

Nodding his acknowledgment, Shiro murmured his goodbyes and headed off.

“You need any help setting up, Coran?” Lance asked.

Considering, Coran nodded.  “That would be useful.  You have very slim fingers.”

Lance bit his lip, and long experience with his friend let Hunk know he was thinking of a dirty joke.  “Glad to be appreciated.  What about you, Hunk?”

“I have a few things I need to look over tonight,” he admitted, sighing.  It had been a long day, and Hunk was gunna sleep well tonight.

Lance glanced over at him, taking in his exhaustion.  “Wanna see if Pidge’s movie collection has any spy thrillers, later?  We can hang out.”

Hmm… Pidge never liked them poking at her files without her around.

But Hunk was also curious, and that would be fun.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he agreed, smiling back.

Because as good as sleep sounded, Hunk would much rather spend some time with Lance.  It might not end up being relaxing, but that was just part of who Lance was.

Hunk wouldn’t trade it for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> All done? Head to [part three](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9378713) by Ashinan!


End file.
